Baladi Music in Egypt

Mazaj Band performing Baladi Carmen composed by Maren Lueg and Chas Whitaker at the Green Park Brasserie at the Bath Fringe Festival 2009, Greeen Park Station, Bath Spa, UK

Baladi music in Egypt
Maren Lueg 2008

In Arabic, “Baladi” means “folk”. The term Baladi is used to describe the particular identity of working class people who have migrated to the towns from rural villages and farming communities.
Egyptian musicians also use Baladi as a synonym for “Ashra Baladi”, which is a structured improvisation using Western, and traditional Egyptian, instruments.

Egyptian Folk music took on new colour, shapes and sophistication at the turn of the 20th Century, during British rule, when country people migrated to the cities to find security in employment, and a new prosperity.
During the period from the late 1800s to the early 1900s in Egypt, a plethora of Western musical forms and instruments was introduced, for example, popular instruments like the accordion, the saxophone, the clarinet and the trumpet were integrated by urban folk musicians to give Baladi music a new sound.
What was once simple folk music for weddings and celebrations in rural communities became a complex musical idiom in the coffee houses of Cairo and Alexandria.
Western culture has had on the improvisation technique and expression in Egyptian folk music was the introduction of Western instruments that are tuned to the Western piano pitch. This has reduced the use of micro-tones. Even so, some Egyptian musicians tried to build quarter-tones into their accordions, and learned how to play quarter-tones on their saxophones and trumpets. The tuning of the more subtle micro-tones had got lost to make space for a new westernised sound within the Afrah Baladi improvisation.
The combination of the migration of country people to the cities at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, during British rule, and the introduction to Western instruments and scales laid the foundation of the development of a new form of Baladi music.
Some of the Ashra Baladi musicians of Cairo and Alexandria draw their inspiration not only from Western, but also from Latin, music, but the essence of their improvisation kept the feeling and emotional expression of the traditional Egyptian folk music and the rapture of ancient folk tunes alive.

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